Fire Alarm
by richfamous
Summary: Ron and Harry are on a mission - trying to make sure that one of his brothers doesn't land himself in a soapy bubble. But the solution may leave them more scarred than the problem. As my dad used to say, "Fire alarms are to see who is in beds they shouldn't be."
1. Chapter 1

What Fire Alarms Are For

All was calm and quiet in the Gryffindor common room. The twins had retired and taken their laughter and boisterousness up with them, leaving the rest of their house to talk in quiet groups in corners, gossiping about the tasks in the tournament and shooting The Boy Who Lived curious glances. With a resigned sigh, Harry turned over another page in his Transfiguration textbook before realising that he hadn't understood a word of the previous page and turning back with an even more resigned sigh.

The almost silence was broken by a loud bang as Ron leapt through the portrait door and sprinted over to where Harry sat. Grabbing his best friend by the arm he hissed, "Come with me!" and rushed Harry up to their dorm before Harry could so much as squeak in protest.

Shutting the door and glancing around to ensure that none of their dorm mates had come up yet; Ron shoved something small and white into Harry's hands with a strangled, "Look at this!"

"This had better be good," Harry warned him. "My head may forgive you but my ankle is less genteel."

"Oh, it's anything but good!" exclaimed Ron, pacing back and forth and biting his nails. "It's worst kind of bad!"

"Better and better," Harry muttered sarcastically, unrolling the scrap of paper Ron had handed him and reading it.

 _Meet me in the old Transfiguration room on the first floor. It's nice and warm there._

 _PC_

Harry frowned at the message, done in a clear, bold but obviously feminine hand. Finally, after staring until his eyes hurt, he said, "I get the feeling I'm supposed to be horrified beyond belief by this but … I'm not."

"Don't you see?" exclaimed Ron, becoming more agitated by the second. "PC!"

"A laptop?" Harry asked, growing more and more confused by the second.

Ron paused in his pacing and stared at Harry as though he'd just used the proper name for You-Know-Who. "Is that some kind of horrible Muggle euphemism for … for …?" he asked, going redder than his hair.

After blinking at Ron for a minute he eventually said, "Tell you what, you tell me what PC means to you and then we'll see if I'm shocked. That sound good?"

"It's someone's initials!" Ron almost shouted. "Penelope Clearwater!"

"Percy's girlfriend!" Harry realised, glad to have finally understood something.

"And I found it on the table Percy used to do his homework!" Ron moaned.

"And he left five minutes after doing it," Harry finished, finally taking in the severity of the situation. "How long ago was that?"

Ron checked his watch, before cursing (relatively) quietly and saying, "About ten minutes ago. I found the paper and then went out to see if I could catch him. I saw him going into the room!"

"And?" Harry asked, eyes wide and mind whirling.

"I ran!" Ron exclaimed, gesturing wildly with his arms.

"Well that was stupid," said Harry. "If you want to stop someone … doing … that … don't you usually want to stop them at the beginning?"

"YOU'RE TELLING ME TO STOP MY BROTHER HAVING SEX?! WHAT KIND OF _TYRANT_ ARE YOU?" bellowed Ron, so loudly that Harry was sure that everyone from Professor Sinistra cleaning her telescopes up in the Astronomy Tower down to Snape cooking up some sort of death brew down in the dungeons had heard it.

"Well what do you suggest we do?" Harry asked. He would have laid a comforting hand on Ron's arm, but his survival instinct gave him various good reasons not to so he refrained.

"I don't know!" Ron groaned, running his hands through his carrot-red hair. "D'you think we could just leave them?"

"D'you think they know how to not get pregnant?" Harry asked, before realising that was the wrong thing to say if he was trying to calm things down and bit his tongue sharply.

"Bloody HELL!" Ron looked as though he was somewhere between exploding and passing out. "I'm too young to be an uncle! And Ginny only got the talk last year! And Mom would kill them! Percy may not be my favourite brother but that doesn't mean I want him to be torn to shreds in front of my eyes!"

"Then we've got to stop them," said Harry, in as calm and diplomatic a tone as he could manage.

"I'm not going to walk in on my brother … canoodling," said Ron, with firmness that Professor McGonagall would have been proud of. "Not. In. A. Thousand. Infinities."

"You can't have multiple infinties," Harry pointed out. "Infintiy is essentially 'forever'."

"Oy!" said Ron, giving him a shove. "Now's not the time to turn into Hermione Flipping Granger! We have a potential baby on our hands! Golly I'm only supposed to be saying that when I'm twenty-five – what is wrong with my life?"

"Well how else are we going to stop it without marching over there and embarrassing them to the point where they won't do it again?" Harry asked. It was not a prospect that he relished, but he saw no other way around it.

"That didn't work with my parents," said Ron grimly.

"What do you … oooooh." Harry's question died away and he hastily decided to change the subject. "Well, what can we do?"

"Think," said Ron, beginning pacing up and down the room again. "And fast!"

oo0oo

"What do you mean a fire alarm?" Ron asked as he sprinted down another set of stairs, trying to catch up with his friend.

"It's a Muggle thing," Harry explained, ears pricked for Snape as he rounded another corner.

 _What if Snape caught Percy and Penelope?_ Snape had been in good humour lately (maybe due to the fact that Death was practically banging on Harry's door at every turn he took) but Harry knew for a fact that Snape would not take kindly to students taking such liberties on school grounds. What he would do ...

The very idea made him run faster, causing Ron to hiss in protest. "It senses when there's a fire and sets of a loud blaring sound that warns people. Oh, drat! Where is it?"

"I don't know!" exclaimed Ron, glancing around the darkened corridor with the air of someone who has no clue what on earth they're looking for. "I only found out the bloody thing existed two minutes ago."

"I heard Dumbledore talking to McGonagall about it a couple of days back," Harry told Ron, fumbling to find the Marauders Map in the hope that it had the object on it.

"He's batty I tell you," Ron muttered.

"Mmm," said Harry, pulling out his spell to cast the Lumos charm so that he could actually see. "McGonagall said the same."

"Really?" asked Ron. "I don't see prim and proper Professor McGonagall saying that."

"Oh she didn't say it quite like that," said Harry. " _Lumos._ She did say, 'If I didn't know you were such an old fool already I'd have rushed you to Poppy. This is the Wizarding World, Albus, not an antique fair for your amusement.'"

"Well, she used his first name," observed Ron. "That's rather personal for McGonagall."

"Oh, you've seen them," said Harry, having found the alarm on the map and beginning to move towards it, "their essentially married to each other but without the rings and … well … let's go find this alarm shall we?!"

They eventually found it, a small red box with the words 'In the event of an emergency, cast the bombarda spell. In the event of you being a nitwit or having the surname 'Longbottom' smash the glass. (And no, we did not install a hammer – use your hands you big numpty)'. "Pleasant isn't it," said Ron drily. "Methinks the wizard who installed this was having a bit of a bad day … or was Snape."

"Well, firstly," said Harry, "'Methinks'? You accuse me of being Hermione! Secondly, give old Snape a break. I've noticed he's been in a much better mood lately."

"What do you mean by lately?" Ron asked, as Harry drew out his wand.

Harry paused to think. Now that he thought about it, Snape had been growing ever so slightly more pleasant since third year. There was no mistaking that he was still snarky, sarcastic and demanded the highest of performances but he had seemed in better humour lately. Maybe it was due to the fact that he had struck up a friendship with Professor Gondolin, the Care of Magical Creatures Teacher who had taken over from Professor Kettleburn in Harry's second year and was by far one of the nicest teachers that Harry had been taught by.

"We can debate the reason for Snape's good humour at some other time," Harry told Ron, handing him the Marauders Map. "Now, let's smash something."

" _Bombarda!_ " hissed Harry, at the same time that Ron screamed, "Harry, I command you, do not cast that spell ... oh damn it!"

"What?" asked Harry, turning to face Ron as the alarm wailed throughout the school.

"Look!" Ron exclaimed, shoving the Map under Harry's nose.

"Oh ..." No words that Harry could think of quite covered this situation.

"Practically married without the wedding rings eh?" said Ron drily.

"Now we know why Snape's been in such a good mood lately," Harry groaned, head in hands. Ron looked as though he was about to vomit.

"Bloody hell, Harry, you haven't seen the worst yet!"

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me! What is wrong with this place?"

 **And on that cheerful note I'll leave you.**

 **What on earth is going on? Let me know what you think! ;)**


	2. Chapter 2

Fire Alarm - Chapter 2

Severus Snape hated being interrupted. He hated it when a student put up their hand while he was talking. He hated it when someone bumped into him in the corridors. And he most definitely hated it when Dumbledore's blasted alarm went off just when the majority of Eowyn's upper body was exposed. With a groan he leaned his head against her forehead and said, "I'm going to kill that old man."

Eowyn laughed over the sound of the blaring alarm and shoved him playfully off her, pulling her nightdress more closely around her. "I'm sure you will," she said with a smile and a consoling kiss on the cheek, "but before you do, I think we might want to see what's going on before we find the school collapsing into cinders around our ears."

"It's probably another dragon of Hagrid's," he muttered, following her out of his rooms.

"No," she said, with firmness that betrayed her years of knowledge of Hagrid's character, "I checked everywhere and there's no dragons this year, at least not any that there shouldn't. Though it could be on of his Blast-Ended Skrewts on the loose."

"I'm sure watching Hogwarts go up in flames because of an overgrown scorpion will certainly leave a positive impression on Karkaroff and Maxime!" Severus commented.

"Since we're talking about Karkaroff," said Eowyn as they began to ascend the stairs from the dungeons, "I've noticed he's been giving me funny looks and I was thinking - "

"He's a dead man!" Severus snapped, eyes blazing like black fire. "As soon as I'm done torturing Dumbledore, he's up!"

Eowyn couldn't help but grin and say, "Steady on, I don't see how that would in any way increase feelings of peace and friendship between here and Durmstrang."

"Who in their right minds _wants_ to be friends with Durmstrang, be real!" said Severus. "They look like a horde of thugs!"

"Oh, they're not all bad!" said Eowyn. Severus couldn't help but smile at that. "There's this one girl called Leanna who's really quite charming."

"Well no offence, my dear, but you could befriend Lucius Malfoy himself if you set your mind to it."

"Which is why I'd have made a much better double-agent than you," said Eowyn with a grin to show that she didn't mean it.

"You offend me!" exclaimed Severus with fake ire.

"Well, nothing new th-"

She abruptly dropped to a halt as they entered the Entrance Hall, where the fire alarm was. And there, standing before the bright red box, stood the bane of Snape's life, Harry Potter himself, with Ron at his side.

oo0oo

Harry had seen and done many strange things over the course of his fourteen years on this Earth. But this had got to take the cake. Severus Snape with a glare on his face that would surely cow even the Weasley twins, looked far less intimidating with his shirt half off and what might or might not be a lipstick stain on his cheek. Professor Gondolin stood next to him, hastily wrapping her nightdress around her, face turning bright pink and face palmed vigorously, muttering something along the lines of, "God, if I've ever done anything to deserve merit, help me now!"

But apparently either Eowyn had never done anything to deserve merit (Harry was sure she had) or God was laughing too hard to hear her properly, because no unseen force snatched Harry and Ron away, both remaining firmly fixed on Earth. Before Eowyn could speak, Severus broke in with his usual charming greeting. "Potter," he said with thinly veiled disdain, "and Weasley too. What a surprise? Tell me, what catastrophe has struck this school that the Boy Who Lived and his faithful hound cannot deal with it?"

"Severus," Eowyn reprimanded, giving him a shove, "be nice."

"Eowyn, I was just denied ..." There was an awkward pause during which Severus tried to find a way of saying 'sex' without saying just that and in the end he gave up and just continued his sentence without it. "What do you expect me to do? Give him a pat on the back for breaking something? Though to be honest that's the only thing he's good at."

"Severus!" exclaimed Eowyn. "You're not helping." Turning back to the two boys, "Although I would like to know what in the name of Merlin possessed you two. Don't tell me your father has started demanding that you test out Muggle artefacts for him, Mr Weasley. And if he is, I will personally write to him and recommend several other large buildings which he can wreak havoc in. The Houses of Parliament for instance. Or the Senate and the House of Representatives if he's feeling cosmopolitan."

"And we can also have him sued!" snapped Severus.

"Don't you dare, Severus Snape!" Eowyn snapped back at him. "Or you're going to find my side of the bed _very_ empty for the next month!" Severus subsided with a grumble and Eowyn crooked an eyebrow at the boys.

"Uhuuuummm." Apparently Ron had lost the ability to speak. Harry couldn't blame him. It wasn't every day you got to see your Care of Magical Creatures teacher's legs. They were worth looking at.

"Mr Potter?" Eowyn asked, pushing a tangled strand of hair out of her face.

"Well, you see ..."

Before he could properly explain (or lie, just depends) they heard more voices coming down the hall.

"Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, you are going to die a slow and painful death!"

Severus smirked. "Never mind what I said, my schedule's been freed up. Karkaroff can die first now."

Eowyn rolled her eyes, before they widened and she turned to Severus with a panicked look on her face. "Severus! There's something very important you need to know! You too, boys! Dumbledore and Minerva are - "

"Bloody hell!" exclaimed Severus, Ron and Harry all at once.

"Dammit!" Eowyn hissed, hiding her face in her palm. This was going to be a long night for all of them. And that wasn't assumed the Bloody Prophet wasn't onto them with all the noise they were making.

oo0oo

Minerva McGonagall had aged exceptionally well, even for a witch, and at seventy-something, she still had the ability to make the boys go red, even in a slightly rumpled dressing gown ... never mind ... _especially_ in a slightly rumpled dressing gown with most of her hair undone. But that was only part of the reason why Ron Weasley's jaw hit the ground.

"When did you get a tattoo, Minerva?" Severus asked slowly, speaking for everyone in the room.

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know," Eowyn chipped in with a furrowed brow.

The Transfiguration teacher glanced around the room, taking in all the faces, before turning a brilliant red and yelling down the corridor, "Scratch that, you're not going to die! I'm going to keep you suspended in a state halfway between life and death, in continual agony until your eyeballs pop out and - "

"Minerva, there are children present," Eowyn interrupted before realising that, after finding out that their loathed Potions Master was actually capable of 'you know what', hearing about Albus Dumbledore's impending doom would be like peppermint cheesecake.

"No, do go on," said Severus with a mischievous grin that ruined his reputation as a grim, humourless vampire forever.

"You're a git," Eowyn informed him with an elbow to the stomach.

"So I've been told," said Severus. "In many more artistic forms than that."

"And what are you two doing?" Minerva asked, eyes going wide at their state of semi-undress.

"Same thing as you two, I believe," said Severus, grin still plastered on his face as the Headmaster joined the small crowd dressed much more presentably. Though, if Harry was honest, those shades of blue and red _did not go_ and, judging by the way Professor McGonagall was looking at it, she had similar feelings.

"I thought we agreed you'd burn that?" she asked with a raised eyebrow and the air of having had this argument many times before.

"I'm rather fond of it," Albus defended.

"Well _I'm_ not."

"You don't have to wear it."

"I do have to look at it."

"Minerva!" Severus interrupted. "You still haven't explained the tattoo!"

"Yes, please do!" Ron blurted. Then, when everyone glared at him, "Not that it's any of my business or anything ... just ... you know."

Minerva sighed and covered up the small tattoo of a cat that nestled just below her collarbone. "We were all young once, Weasley. Even me, though it may hurt your brain to think so."

"But ... I've never seen it," Eowyn gasped, mouth open. "Even when you came down in the nightdress to give us detention for trying to catch the Giant Squid in fourth year I didn't see it!"

"You tried to catch the Giant Squid?" Severus was gawking just as much as Ron and Harry at this point. "You never told me that."

"I was going to tell you it last week but you seemed more interested in getting my blouse off so I decided to save it for another time," said Eowyn, grinning when Harry, Ron and Severus all ducked as one behind their hair.

"Wow, Minerva, I didn't know you had a tattoo!" exclaimed Auriga Sinistra as she came down in the stairs.

"Merlin above help me!" the Transfiguration teacher muttered. Albus grinned quietly to himself and gave her a small pat on the shoulder, earning him a 'you're going to die in agony' glare in response.

"Auriga, for the sake of your dignity if not my own, cover yourself!" Eowyn exclaimed, pulling her own dressing gown off and using it to cover her friend's almost naked form. "Golly, what would your mother say?"

"She'd say that you're going to freeze in that little nightie of yours and - Eowyn freaking Gondolin is that a hickey?" Auriga shrieked, eyes wide and glittering like stars.

"It gets worse," her friend Septima muttered, shooting Severus a look that clearly stated that she knew exactly what was going on. At least she had proper nightwear on. Ron looked as though his eyes were going to fall out of his head.

"Oh, Merlin's crooked spectacles, do you mean what I think you mean?" Auriga gasped, grabbing her friend by the shoulders and giving her a shake.

"Hello, Minerva," said Flitwick with a yawn, as Harry stifled a giggle. Flitwick apparently didn't know that toddler onesies were not in fashion for wizards of his age. "I say Albus, did you know that Minerva had a tattoo?"

"Oh, Flitwick," Eowyn moaned to herself, "when will your innocence end?"

"I'm afraid it's infinite," Severus murmured in her ear.

"Mmhmm," she agreed.

Albus smiled at Flitwick, as his wife scowled at him, her eyes ordering him to say that no, he had never seen it, never thought of it and most certainly never touched it. Instead, in typical Dumbledore fashion he said, "Yes," in the most innocent way possible. Minerva promptly stood on his foot so hard that you could hear the bone crack.

"Ow," Albus said, rather less of a reaction than Minerva had hoped for. "What was that for?"

"It's the price of honesty, Albus," said Severus with a knowing smirk.

"You deserved that black eye," Eowyn told him, giving him a shove.

Ron turned to Harry and whispered, "Once I've forgotten what she looks like in a nightgown, remind me to give Professor Gondolin a high-five."

"I know," said Harry with a grin, "it's not every day that you meet someone who can say they've punched Snape."

"Boys!"

Apparently the teachers had finally stopped gossiping and accusing each other of sexual relations with each other for long enough to pay the two boys some real attention. It was Minerva who addressed them, hands on hips and a fiery glare in her eyes. "What are you doing out of bed?"

It took Harry a few moments to indeed remember why they _had_ been out of bed. He had been rather distracted by the fact that the six teachers he knew in his life who he felt were least likely to ... do ... that ... well ... did ... that ... and fairly often it would seem. Finally he remembered. Percy and Penelope. But they couldn't say that ...

"We were going to see Hagrid," said a voice behind them.

 _No, no, no, no, no!_

oo0oo

Honestly, boys, Hermione thought, shaking her head. They knew how to get themselves into a pickle. When Lavendar had told her of Ron and Harry's strange departure and Seamus had showed her the note, she hadn't known whether to laugh or scream. Instead she had headed out to try to stop them doing something stupid. Apparently she was too late.

Gathering around the red box were various professors. There was Professor Flitwick in a leopard onesie which looked suspiciously lifelike, Professor Sprout slapping herself every five seconds to try and stay awake, Professor Karkaroff arguing about the 'reason for his patrols' with Mad-Eye while at the same time sneaking a glance or two in Professor Gondolin's direction, Professor Sinistra wearing a dark blue nightgown over the underwear that she apparently thought of as pyjamas, Professor Burbage in tatty teddy pyjamas mumbling thanks to a House Elf as she accepted a mug of coffee and a muffin from it, Professor Vector giving Professor Snape a lecture of some kind or another ... woah ... hold it there.

Hermione felt herself going pink as she made the connection between Snape's undone collar and slightly dishevelled hair and Professor Gondolin's arm linked with his and her slightly pink cheeks as she joined the argument which Hermione considered must have something to do with ethics. Then there was Professor McGonagall giving Dumbledore the verbal thrashing of his life - _WOAH, MCGONAGALL HAS A TATTOO!_ Hermione highly doubted she would ever be able to look at her Transfiguration Professor the same again.

"Boys!" Hermione jumped slightly in the shadows, just like Ron and Harry. "What are you doing out of bed?" McGonagall asked, somehow still managing to look threatening in a dressing gown.

Nothing. Harry and Ron stared at her as though she had grown horns. With another eye roll at the stupidity of the male gender, Hermione stepped forward and said the first thing that came into her head, "We're going to see Hagrid."

She couldn't understand for the life of her why Harry and Ron looked so stricken at her words.

"And you decided that the dead of night was a good time?" McGonagall asked, an eyebrow raised. "I can well imagine these two ... boys doing that. But you, Miss Granger, are far above that."

Hermione allowed herself a small smirk at Ron and Harry before saying with all meekness, "I was just going after them, Professor." Then, when McGonagall turned towards her friends in search of an answer, "It's about the next task. We had an idea and we thought he might be able to help us."

"The whole point of the Tournament -" Severus began.

"Is that we need to win," Eowyn interrupted. Then, as Severus raised an eyebrow at her, "Well if you're allowed to be unscrupulous so am I."

"I'm the Head of Slytherin House. It's my job to be unscrupulous. You're just a Ravenclaw professor."

"Just?"

"Wrong word choice."

"You just don't want Potter to win." Severus's silence spoke volumes. Rolling her eyes and turning to her Auriga, Eowyn muttered, "Why did I end up dating a git?"

Auriga shrugged. "How am I supposed to know? Until now I didn't even know that you were that way involved!"

"Oh come on, Auriga!" Septima Vector exclaimed. "One does not simply turn Gilderoy Lockhart down for a giant bat and not be 'that way involved'!"

"Vector!" snapped Severus.

"Firstly, Tima," said Eowyn, "you need to get over this obsession with the Lord of the Rings. Secondly, I didn't turn Lockhart down, I punched him in the face."

"And I have never been happier in my life," Severus muttered with a smile at the memory. Harry and Ron could do nothing but agree with him.

"Going to see Hagrid is all very well," Minerva snapped, "but is it quite necessary to break the first red object that they see?"

"At least we know it works," Dumbledore said enthusiastically.

Minerva turned to him and _glared_ in that very special way that she reserved for him. "Is that what you're going to say about my fist when it connects with your nose?"

"Easy, Minerva, it's crooked enough," said Eowyn.

"But there's no harm done, Minnie," Albus tried to sooth her.

"NO HARM DONE!?" shrieked the hall in unison.

"Don't call me Minnie!"

"I just found out that my best friend is sleeping with one of the most infamous Death Eaters in the Wizarding World and you say 'no harm done'?"

"All I wanted was a good night's sleep, is that too much to ask?"

"Potter is never going to let me forget this, I'm ruined!"

"You'll survive, Severus."

"Is that a wedding ring, Minerva?"

"Flitwick, shut up!"

"It is interesting to see how Hogwarts handles crisis," Karkaroff murmured to himself.

"BOOM!"

Everyone spun around to face Mad-Eye, who was glowering at them fiercely from both his magical eye and his ordinary one. "Are you quite done screeching at each other like pack of chimpanzees?" he groused.

"We hadn't even gotten started," Severus drawled.

Ignoring the Potion Master's jibe, Mad-Eye turned to face the trio. "Get on with the lot of you and let some of us get some sleep," he drawled, moving away with a final look of death in Karkaroff's direction.

"Thank you, Professor Moody," Hermione called out politely. "Come on Harry, Ron."

As they set off down the hallway there was a pattering of feet and Professor McGonagall appeared beside them, twisting her hair up into a bun again. "I'll come with you, Miss Granger. I could do with some of Hagrid's punch."

"I'll come too," said Professor Gondolin. "Fang got injured by one of Hagrid's Blast-Ended Skrewts and I promised I'd take a look at it. May as well get it over and done with."

"Want me to come with you?" Severus offered. It wasn't as though he was going to get much sleep tonight what with one thing or another.

"Why not?" Eowyn said with a smile, falling into step beside him.

"No way am I letting you two get off that easily, I have questions to ask," Auriga said with a mischievous grin.

"In that case I'm in too," said Professor Vector.

"Hey! Don't leave me behind!" Charity exclaimed, running after them with her tea still on hand.

"Damn!" Severus muttered.

"I've always been fond of Fang," Flitwick mused. "I'll come as well."

"We better make sure Fang doesn't mistake him for a cat and chase him," Severus whispered in Eowyn's ear.

"Mmhmm," Eowyn agreed.

"I may as well go check on the Greenhouses via his hut," Professor Sprout declared.

"Joining the cavalcade, Albus?" Karkaroff asked conversationally.

"I suppose I'd better," Albus sighed. "Better make sure Minerva doesn't drink too much. She has to teach tomorrow."

Karkaroff grinned slyly. "Always putting the employees' needs first, Albus," he observed.

"Always," said Albus seriously, joining his wife in the parade.

Karkaroff grinned to himself and joined at the back. Severus glared at him as he drew level with Eowyn and himself. "What do you want, Karkaroff?" he asked coldly, remembering what Eowyn had said. _Just give me time and you're a dead man._

"I have some business with Madame Maxime," said Karkaroff. "It is strange that she did not hear the alarm is it not?"

"Yes, I suppose it is," said Eowyn thoughtfully. "Neither did Hagrid and as I remember he has very sharp hearing."

At the front of the line, Harry overheard those words and winced. "Hermione," he whispered, "you really shouldn't have said we were going to see Hagrid."

"I had five seconds to save your necks," Hermione whispered, "and anyway I don't see what's wrong with it. Hagrid's not had this much company in forever."

Harry shook his head to himself. "Ron and I suspect he may be already entertaining."

"But I don't ..." Hermione's eyes went wider than Hedwig's and her jaw dropped so far that the Basilisk could have fitted comfortably. "Oh my flipping Merlin!" she hissed.

"We have to think this through," Ron whispered. "Which pair is worse?"

All three exchanged knowing glances. Then Hermione spun around to cut off Minerva and Albus's (thankfully amiable) conversation with a most innocent, "Professor McGonagall, I forgot to mention, I heard some strange noises inside the old Transfiguration classroom. I think Peeves might be at it again."

"The scoundrel!" Minerva exclaimed. And as one all the teachers spun around to follow her back up the hall, united in their distaste for the poltergeist, leaving only Eowyn, who was smiling knowingly, and Karkaroff, who was glaring at them with great suspicion.

With a sweet smile, Eowyn turned to Karkaroff and said, "Professor Karkaroff, I must say I'm pleased to have a moment alone with you. I would like you to tell me about Durmstrang. It sounds like a most thrilling place." As she spoke, she directed the wizard away, before turning to them briefly and whispering, "Give Hagrid regards from me."

Then it was only the Trio standing alone in the corridor, blinking at each other like foxes caught in headlights.

A yell and a shriek of surprise, followed by what sounded like a tired of Gaelic swearwords from Professor McGonagall got them moving. "I'm sorry, Percy," Ron whispered, "but your sacrifice will not be in vain."

"Whether it's in vain or not there are going to be a lot of awkward glances tomorrow morning," said Harry.

 **Just some fun that my bored mind concocted that I hope you will like. Reviews are welcome! :)**


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